Déjà vu with Evers, DeFoe
Last year’s All-Star finalists pick up where they left off
By Ken Duke
DECATUR, Ill. — The second annual Toyota Trucks All-Star Week is shaping up a lot like the first one ended, with Oklahoma’s Edwin Evers and Tennessee’s Ott DeFoe sitting atop the leaderboard.
After finishing second and first, respectively, at the inaugural All-Star Week in 2012, the two are poised to advance yet again. With one day to go before the 12-angler field is cut to the Top 4, Evers’ limit of five Lake Shelbyville bass weighing 13 pounds, 1 ounce looks like it will propel him to the semifinals with ease.
DeFoe, last year’s All-Star champion, is in second place with four bass weighing 11-3. No other angler has more than 7-7.
Evers was the only angler in the field to catch a limit in the first round. He caught a total of seven keepers, culling down to the tournament limit of five. He’s working two patterns — one that’s “fairly shallow” and another offshore. Though he’s in great shape to finish in the Top 4 and advance, he wasn’t ready to talk about the details of his methods just yet.
“I’m doing something that I don’t think anyone else is doing,” Evers said. “If I can catch five more keepers tomorrow that weigh 7 or 8 pounds, I’ll feel really good about my chances.”
Though DeFoe managed the second-best total of the day, he fell one short of a limit. Like Evers, he was predictably reserved in his comments, but did offer a few details. “I caught my three biggest bass in about a 15-minute span — all on the same bait — and I lost another in the same area. I’m fishing shallow, less than 5 feet deep.”
DeFoe believes that if he can catch two keepers of any size — about three pounds — he’ll be in good shape to advance to the semifinals.
